Consulting

Building Your Business Case

Build A Business Case
Building a business case to present to a board or your CIO/CFO can appear to be a daunting task however IT managers are increasingly called upon to present business cases for either the adoption of new systems, or the upgrade of existing systems. One of the greatest challenges has been how to present the benefits that can't be easily or readily quantified. By providing you with these tools and templates, we hope that this goes some why towards helping you build a case that you can present to your board.

ROI Calculators & Business Case Templates

The calculators listed below are designed to assist you with the financial aspect of building a business case for any of the scenarios listed below. These calculators have been re-produced with permission from Nucelus Research, and the Info-Tech Research Group. These tools should be treated as template models and guidelines only, but we are willing to assist you in building a business case for your IT projects - if you would like the help of our team please contact us.

Tool	Description	Download Link
Standard ROI Calculator	Build a financial business case to support your technology decision. Using the navigation buttons in the tool you'll enter appropriate cost and benefit information and then print both a summary and a detailed financdial report.	Standard ROI Calculator
CRM ROI Calculator	Will CRM add real value to your bottom line? This calculator is designed to help you evaluate the decision to implement CRM technology in your business.	CRM ROI Calculator
Business Intelligence ROI Tool	This calculator is designed to help you build a business case and support your business intelligence technology decision by evaluating the real value to your bottom line.	Business Intelligence ROI Tool
Business Impact Analysis Tool	Use this template to determine your organisation's threshold or tolerance for downtime for each business unit. It considers factors such as resources, time frame's, financial costs, goodwill, as well as the positives.	Business Impact Analysis Tool
ERP Readiness Assement Tool	How prepared is your organisation for a full scale Enterprise Resource Planning solution? This template consists of a series of questions every business should consider asking themselves when comteplating the procurement and implementation of an ERP solution.	ERP Readiness Assessment Tool
Total Cost Of Ownership Calculator	This tool provides organisations with a framework for managing IT costs at both a strategic level and a daily operational level. The model breaks IT costs into two categories: direct and indirect costs	Total Cost Of Ownership Spreadsheet
SAP vs JD Edwards	This independent report analyses the total cost of ownership of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne vs SAP	JDE Vs SAP TCO Wars
Data Integration Project Analysis Tool	This calculator has been designed to enable you to identify which of the projects on your integration wish list should be given priority and which ones should be shelved	Data Integration Project Analysis
CRM On Demand, Business Impact Guidebook	An independently produced guidebook that will assist anyone trying to build a business case for implementing CRM on Demand.	CRM - Business Impact

Ndevr does not accept responsibility for any decisions or directions your organisation takes as a result of using these tools.

ERP Upgrades

goldfishupgrade Upgrading your Oracle ERP system is a significant investment that must deliver value to your business. Often an upgrade is required to allow the business to grow, improve operational efficiency, and to allow your business to take advantage of new developments, but how do you co-ordinate an upgrade so that it doesn't interfere with day to day operations, or become a project that delivers little or no return on investment..

Determining the value of a systems or ERP upgrade can often seem a bit hit and miss, but there is help out there to help you build a business case.

The key drivers behind the decision to upgrade existing ERP systems include

Vendor support no longer being available
Additional and improved functionality
Consolidation of systems, with a view to lowering costs
Bug fixes or statutory changes. (Sometimes it is just as much work to take a new version of software as to try to selectively patch the old one.)

Regardless of the reasons behind your decision to upgrade, the success of your upgrade will ultimately be determined by the way in which it is managed, and the end cost to your business.

Stages in the upgrade project that need to be considered include;

Project planning
Gap analysis
Business Process Reengineering
Training
Mapping
Configuration, customisations, retirement of existing systems
Documentation and end user training and acceptance

An Oracle upgrade is not as stressful as you may have been led to believe. This recent survey of CIO's and Enterprise Applications Managers about their upgrades provides a great deal of insight into the impact to their business of the upgrade.
icon Upgrades Arent As Stressful As You Might Think

ERP Implementation

businessgroup ERP Implementation is a significant project for any business, and it also carries a high degree of risk. Ndevr have been implementing, integrating and customising ERP systems since 1998, and have many references in this area. Ensuring the success of all new ERP implementation projects that we take on is our highest priority.

Oracle Accelerate
The Implementation of ERP systems is generally recognised as being complex, costly, and taking many months. To overcome this, Ndevr has embraced Oracle's Accelerate implementation methodology - Oracle Accelerate allows companies to pre-configure almost all of their new ERP system prior to implementation, bringing the implementation time down to a matter of weeks instead of months. This in turn greatly reduces the costs of installing your new software, and allows your business to start using your new software almost straight away.

ERP In The Cloud
Oracle On Demand enables you to move your ERP systems to the cloud. With world class tier 4 data centers opening up around the globe, including Australia, Oracle on Demand now hosts the ERP infrastructure of some major (and minor) Australian and New Zealand coroprations. Oracle On Demand can be viewed as a cheaper alternative to investing in your own data center and applications servers and administrators. The other advantages to outsourcing your data center include lower electricity bills, as well as the ability to shift operational control of a siginifcant emissions source to a third party.

Software Implementation

Implementing new software, or ERP implementation, requires planning and, depending on the software to be implemented and the number of end users impacted by the new software, implementation often requires project management as well.

Ndevr recognises that the success of a new implementation project can be measured in terms of end user adoption and the bottom line benefit to your business.

Readiness Reviews & Risk Assessments

Identify critical issues that may prevent and IT solution or automated system/application from being sucessfully implemented in your business.

A readiness review

Reduces the risk of potentially costly fixes to your ERP solution by identifying areas of concern before implementation
Increases end user adoption
Ensures your solution is available when you need it
Ensures your team are fully aware of any outstanding action items that must be completed in order to deliver a successful solution on time.

Readiness reviews should be performed at variou sstages of implementation and are an essential part of any implementation project.

Post "Go Live" Reviews

A post Go live review is an analysis of your system against initial requirements, to determine if there are any gaps between initial requirements and the live system. Further recommendations are made on how the new system could be more fully utilised, increasing user acceptance and satisfaction.

A post Go Live review also provides the business with an opportunity to ensure that hand over and training has been adequate, customisations and system modifications have been handled correctly, and that the business is getting maximum benefit from the new software.

Post "Go Live" Review, Case Study - CarSales.com.au

Business Process Improvements

businessprocessreview Business process reviews map your existing business processes against industry "best practice", and determine not only where there are ways to improve your operational efficiency, but also determine if there are opportunities to improve on the use of software within your organization.

A business process review can also encompass a software utilisation review, as frequently software features and functions are under utilised, and a business review will help to determine if all the functionality that is available to you, is being used and being used correctly. A business process review looks for ways to make improvements to existing business processes, and seeks to ensure users are able to gain access to information, in a timely manner.

Productivity Improvement
Business Insight & Effective Reporting
Operational Efficiency
Meeting Compliance Standards
Reducing Expenditure & Consolidation
Reducing Organisational & Departmental Complexity

Business Reviews bring together all the different groups involved in your business processes - allowing stakeholders and key staff to gain insight into the impacts that changes will have in different parts of the business.

There are frequently many unintended, but positive, side effects from undertaking this process, simply because it opens the channels of communication between different areas that otherwise might not interact, and reminds everybody involved that they have a common goal.

Ndevr is committed to the success of our customers, and we have developed a reputation amongst our customer base as being trusted advisors - this is because our advice is independent, and is provided based on your businesses objectives.

Read more about Business Process Management Software.

More Articles...

<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>

Page 1 of 2